- Email: [email protected]
HORROR COMICS
623 barbiturate poisoning ; and secondly, the intermittent method of administration provides a wide
Parliament
severe
margin of safety.
QUESTION TIME Diagnosis of Pneumoconiosis Replying to a question, Mr. OsBERT PEAKE, Minister of Pensions and National Insurance, said that he did not think an inquiry into the causes of the wide variation in the proportion of pneumoconiosis claims diagnosed as such by the
Whittington Hospital, E. MONTUSCHI Highgate Wing, P. D. WICKENDEN. N.19. London, HORROR COMICS
SIR,-May I express my appreciation of your leading article of March 5. Your enlightened and comprehensive statement is in contrast to what has happened in the United States. Here not one single medical journal has taken up this scientific problem, and not one psychiatric journal has As a as much as mentioned the public-health aspect. matter of fact, one of the crime-comic-book publishers was permitted by a popular medical journal to justify his poison in an article In Defence of Comic Bookswhich is like permitting a distiller to write In Defence of
medical panels in the different areas would any useful purpose. Mr. W. N. WARBEY : Is the Minister aware that the wide variation in diagnosis, from as high as 78% in. Scotland and 70% in the West Midlands to as low as 47% in the East Midlands, is causing a great deal of uneasiness in the coalmining industry ? Now that the scheme has been working for some years, does the Minister not think it would be a good thing to have an inquiry both into the diagnostic ’criteria and into the question of whether it is a really good thing to have a panel of medical experts functioning as a final appeal tribunal for benefit claims ? Mr. PENCE : I cannot accept that the proportion of successful claims in different districts shows that there is any wide variation in diagnosis in those districts. The fact is that the conditions giving rise to the disease, the form of the disease itself, and the awareness of the risk of disease vary greatly from district to district.
pneumoconiosis serve
Alcoholism. You deserve the gratitude of parents for having treated the comic-book problem as a public-health problem. Public health, as William Welch, Sudhoff, and Henry Sigerist often pointed out, is international. And just as the current debate in the British House of Commons could well be a model for the United States Congress, which has now twice brushed off the comic-book
Deaths from Gas Poisoning a question, Mr. GEOFFREY LLOYD, Minister of Replying Fuel and Power, said that he shared the public anxiety problem, so The Lancet may well be a preceptor for our regarding the increasing number of cases of gas poisoning in American medical journals. this country. It was unfortunately an unexpectedly compliFREDRIC WERTHAM. WERT]EIAM. cated problem because the idea that it was simply the old New York. gas mains which caused this trouble was not borne out by COSMETICS the facts. Quite new gas mains in perfect condition had caused trouble in severe weather. That was why a special Mr. Ralph G. Harry, F.R.i.c., writes : engineering investigation was being made. This was particuI am at present revising my book, Cosmetic Materials, larly a problem of older people and the Ministry were in and am anxious to obtain as much information as possible touch with the old people’s organisations with regard to.it. about primary irritation or sensitisation arising from substances used in the cosmetic, toilet, and pharmaceutical Mercury Poisoning and Pink Disease industries. I should be very glad to receive brief details to a question, Mr. lAIN MACLEOD, Minister of Replying of instances in which the offending ingredients have been Health, said that he was advised that the degree of association definitely confirmed by skin tests. If any of your readers between mercury poisoning and pink disease had not been would be good enough to supply such details, I should be clearly established. Many cases of pink disease had no very grateful if they would write to me at 60, Broad Walk, demonstrable association with ingestion of mercury and the Heston, Middlesex. great majority of children who had been given mercurial preparations showed no sign of the disease. It seemed possible that some few infants might have an exceptional and the Law sensitivity to mercury. In 1952 and 1953, 64 children under five years old were certified as having died from pink disease and 4 from mercury poisoning ; in 2 cases both pink disease Broken Needle in Child’s Throat and mercury poisoning were mentioned in the death certificate. A CHILD of 10 was undergoing tonsillectomy and Radioactive Substances adenoidectomy when the right tonsillar bed began to Mr. FREDERICK WILLEY asked the Minister of Labour how bleed severely. While the surgeon was attempting to many members of H.M. inspectorate of factories were specially control the bleeding by stitching the anterior and qualified to deal with the effect of the use of radioactive subposterior faucial pillars together, the needle broke, and stances.-Mr. HAROLD WATKNNSON replied : Six officers at two-thirds of it (about 1/2 in.) remained in the child’s headquarters with appropriate qualifications and experience have made a special study of the problem from the medical, throat. A stitch was inserted with a fresh needle, and scientific, and technical angle, and the chief inspector of the bleeding brought under control. At that point the factories draws freely upon the expert advice of members of bulb in the surgeon’s headlamp failed, plunging the the radiological advisory panel of the statutory advisory theatre into darkness. The bulb was quickly replaced, committee appointed under the Radioactive Substances Act, and the surgeon began a search for the broken needle 1948, of the radiological protection service of the Medical which continued unsuccessfully for an hour. The needle Research Council, and of the Atomic Energy Authority itself. was later removed in another hospital by means of an Instruction has been given to all inspectors in the precautionary methods to be adopted in the use of radioactive substances. electromagnet. Subsequently the child’s father, on his daughter’s Medical Standards in the R.A.F. behalf, claimed E5000 damages from the surgeon. Giving Mr. GEOFFREY DE FREITAS asked the Under-Secretary of judgment in the Edinburgh Court of Session on March 4, State for Air what changes there had been in the last two Lord Guthrie said that examination by a specialist years in the medical standards for regular commissions in the revealed heavy scarring and immobility of the soft palate. general duties branch of the Royal Air Force.-Mr. GEORGE WARD replied : Standards of visual acuity have been slightly the was to difficult Despite speech therapy girl’s speech raised and the standard of colour perception slightly reduced. understand. It was that this to
Medicine
,
possible
might improve,
but her voice would not be adequate for singing. He! held that if the surgeon had exercised reasonable care and skill he would have desisted from his blind search. It, should have occurred to him that prolonged probing and stretching of the fibres would have serious and possibly permanent consequences. E850 damages were awardedl against the surgeon.! .
1.
Times, March 5, 1955 ; Glasgow Herald, March 5, 1955.
Psychiatric Social Workers in Scotland Replying to questions Mr. JAMES STUART, Secretary of State for Scotland, said that psychiatric social workers were employed at 11 of the 34 mental hospitals in Scotland. Provision of aftercare for mental cases was undertaken for the, part by the Scottish Association for Mental Health and its local branches. In 1953-54 contributions to the funds of the association were made by 41 of the 55 local health authorities, comprising the councils of 22 counties and 19 large burghs. most
.
Parliament
severe
margin of safety.
QUESTION TIME Diagnosis of Pneumoconiosis Replying to a question, Mr. OsBERT PEAKE, Minister of Pensions and National Insurance, said that he did not think an inquiry into the causes of the wide variation in the proportion of pneumoconiosis claims diagnosed as such by the
Whittington Hospital, E. MONTUSCHI Highgate Wing, P. D. WICKENDEN. N.19. London, HORROR COMICS
SIR,-May I express my appreciation of your leading article of March 5. Your enlightened and comprehensive statement is in contrast to what has happened in the United States. Here not one single medical journal has taken up this scientific problem, and not one psychiatric journal has As a as much as mentioned the public-health aspect. matter of fact, one of the crime-comic-book publishers was permitted by a popular medical journal to justify his poison in an article In Defence of Comic Bookswhich is like permitting a distiller to write In Defence of
medical panels in the different areas would any useful purpose. Mr. W. N. WARBEY : Is the Minister aware that the wide variation in diagnosis, from as high as 78% in. Scotland and 70% in the West Midlands to as low as 47% in the East Midlands, is causing a great deal of uneasiness in the coalmining industry ? Now that the scheme has been working for some years, does the Minister not think it would be a good thing to have an inquiry both into the diagnostic ’criteria and into the question of whether it is a really good thing to have a panel of medical experts functioning as a final appeal tribunal for benefit claims ? Mr. PENCE : I cannot accept that the proportion of successful claims in different districts shows that there is any wide variation in diagnosis in those districts. The fact is that the conditions giving rise to the disease, the form of the disease itself, and the awareness of the risk of disease vary greatly from district to district.
pneumoconiosis serve
Alcoholism. You deserve the gratitude of parents for having treated the comic-book problem as a public-health problem. Public health, as William Welch, Sudhoff, and Henry Sigerist often pointed out, is international. And just as the current debate in the British House of Commons could well be a model for the United States Congress, which has now twice brushed off the comic-book
Deaths from Gas Poisoning a question, Mr. GEOFFREY LLOYD, Minister of Replying Fuel and Power, said that he shared the public anxiety problem, so The Lancet may well be a preceptor for our regarding the increasing number of cases of gas poisoning in American medical journals. this country. It was unfortunately an unexpectedly compliFREDRIC WERTHAM. WERT]EIAM. cated problem because the idea that it was simply the old New York. gas mains which caused this trouble was not borne out by COSMETICS the facts. Quite new gas mains in perfect condition had caused trouble in severe weather. That was why a special Mr. Ralph G. Harry, F.R.i.c., writes : engineering investigation was being made. This was particuI am at present revising my book, Cosmetic Materials, larly a problem of older people and the Ministry were in and am anxious to obtain as much information as possible touch with the old people’s organisations with regard to.it. about primary irritation or sensitisation arising from substances used in the cosmetic, toilet, and pharmaceutical Mercury Poisoning and Pink Disease industries. I should be very glad to receive brief details to a question, Mr. lAIN MACLEOD, Minister of Replying of instances in which the offending ingredients have been Health, said that he was advised that the degree of association definitely confirmed by skin tests. If any of your readers between mercury poisoning and pink disease had not been would be good enough to supply such details, I should be clearly established. Many cases of pink disease had no very grateful if they would write to me at 60, Broad Walk, demonstrable association with ingestion of mercury and the Heston, Middlesex. great majority of children who had been given mercurial preparations showed no sign of the disease. It seemed possible that some few infants might have an exceptional and the Law sensitivity to mercury. In 1952 and 1953, 64 children under five years old were certified as having died from pink disease and 4 from mercury poisoning ; in 2 cases both pink disease Broken Needle in Child’s Throat and mercury poisoning were mentioned in the death certificate. A CHILD of 10 was undergoing tonsillectomy and Radioactive Substances adenoidectomy when the right tonsillar bed began to Mr. FREDERICK WILLEY asked the Minister of Labour how bleed severely. While the surgeon was attempting to many members of H.M. inspectorate of factories were specially control the bleeding by stitching the anterior and qualified to deal with the effect of the use of radioactive subposterior faucial pillars together, the needle broke, and stances.-Mr. HAROLD WATKNNSON replied : Six officers at two-thirds of it (about 1/2 in.) remained in the child’s headquarters with appropriate qualifications and experience have made a special study of the problem from the medical, throat. A stitch was inserted with a fresh needle, and scientific, and technical angle, and the chief inspector of the bleeding brought under control. At that point the factories draws freely upon the expert advice of members of bulb in the surgeon’s headlamp failed, plunging the the radiological advisory panel of the statutory advisory theatre into darkness. The bulb was quickly replaced, committee appointed under the Radioactive Substances Act, and the surgeon began a search for the broken needle 1948, of the radiological protection service of the Medical which continued unsuccessfully for an hour. The needle Research Council, and of the Atomic Energy Authority itself. was later removed in another hospital by means of an Instruction has been given to all inspectors in the precautionary methods to be adopted in the use of radioactive substances. electromagnet. Subsequently the child’s father, on his daughter’s Medical Standards in the R.A.F. behalf, claimed E5000 damages from the surgeon. Giving Mr. GEOFFREY DE FREITAS asked the Under-Secretary of judgment in the Edinburgh Court of Session on March 4, State for Air what changes there had been in the last two Lord Guthrie said that examination by a specialist years in the medical standards for regular commissions in the revealed heavy scarring and immobility of the soft palate. general duties branch of the Royal Air Force.-Mr. GEORGE WARD replied : Standards of visual acuity have been slightly the was to difficult Despite speech therapy girl’s speech raised and the standard of colour perception slightly reduced. understand. It was that this to
Medicine
,
possible
might improve,
but her voice would not be adequate for singing. He! held that if the surgeon had exercised reasonable care and skill he would have desisted from his blind search. It, should have occurred to him that prolonged probing and stretching of the fibres would have serious and possibly permanent consequences. E850 damages were awardedl against the surgeon.! .
1.
Times, March 5, 1955 ; Glasgow Herald, March 5, 1955.
Psychiatric Social Workers in Scotland Replying to questions Mr. JAMES STUART, Secretary of State for Scotland, said that psychiatric social workers were employed at 11 of the 34 mental hospitals in Scotland. Provision of aftercare for mental cases was undertaken for the, part by the Scottish Association for Mental Health and its local branches. In 1953-54 contributions to the funds of the association were made by 41 of the 55 local health authorities, comprising the councils of 22 counties and 19 large burghs. most
.